Winchester 1887

by William W. Johnstone

  She had a canteen and hurried back to the boy, who blinked away confusion.

  The girl took him by his right arm and led him to a crate that served as a bench in front of the dugout. She began to wash the boy’s face. A wicked gash creased the kid’s forehead, and a bruise was likely forming beneath all the blood and dirt. A concussion or possibly a fractured skull.

  Sixpersons decided to walk . . . to see if he could walk. He came to the dead outlaw. He had wanted to take the man alive, but he wasn’t sorry to see him dead. Actually, he wasn’t sorry to see anything at that point. He was alive. He had to thank Bodeen’s kid, but mostly, the young, tall boy.

  The old Cherokee did not recognize the outlaw, but a man with one eye and one ear and Starr revolvers should not be hard to identify. Probably a reward on him. Next the lawman moved over to Charley with the Greener. The hole in his breast was the size of a fist. The Ranger’s chest was pockmarked with bloody holes from Sixpersons’ shotgun. That might be hard to explain to the Texas Rangers, so maybe he would just leave that part out in his report in Fort Smith. No, Rangers didn’t like to have one of their own go missing. He’d just say that the Ranger, who certainly had no jurisdiction in Indian Territory, had been killed during the assault. Have him die a hero. Him and Charley with the Greener. Killed by the outlaw with the Starr.

  A lie. Sixpersons shook his head. No, not a lie. Just a smart falsehood.

  He had been hanging around with white men too long.

  Changing gears, he went to work. His piebald would be hobbled up atop the arroyo’s bank. Charley’s horse had run off about fifty yards during the last round of gunfire, but didn’t appear to be leaving anytime soon—too much good grass to eat—and the outlaw’s horse stood at the far end of the corral. So they had horses to ride.

  Leaving his shotgun in the dirt, he grabbed the Ranger’s boots and dragged the dead man into the dugout, taking him all the way to the back. He did the same for Charley with the Greener and the dead man, taking them inside, but not before going through the man’s pockets. About seventeen dollars and a gold-filled, open-faced Hamilton pocket watch. Unfortunately, one of the buckshot had shattered the watch’s face, stopping the time at 7:23. The bills were bloody, too, but looked like they would still spend. Sixpersons pocketed the cash but left the ruined watch by the dead man’s boots.

  He also went through the pockets of the other two dead men. Charley had just a few coins, a rabbit’s foot, and chewing tobacco. Nothing that would help identify him when it came to notifying any next of kin. The Ranger had a wallet with some papers and cash money. Those, Sixpersons would hand in at Fort Smith, along with Clarke’s badge so they could be returned to the Ranger’s family in that Panhandle town. He did not look at the papers. He did not want to know anything else about Alan Clarke, who would have killed him and the girl. Clarke had lived the past weeks on nothing but hate. That had killed the Ranger. With help from buckshot from Jackson Sixpersons’ shotgun.

  The last thing the Cherokee lawman did was close the dead Ranger’s eyes.

  With no door to the place, he dragged several hay bales from the lean-to to serve as a barricade. The boy, still being tended to by Bodeen’s daughter, asked if he could help, but Sixpersons did not answer . . . because the girl did.

  “You just sit here,” she snapped, wiping off more blood and dirt. “You ain’t doin’ nothin’ yet. That skull of yourn might be busted.”

  The kid pouted, causing the girl to smile. “Not that you got nothin’ resemblin’ a brain inside that thick skull of yourn.”

  Sixpersons managed to heave the last bale of hay into place. That would hold the bodies, since he had no time to actually bury those men, and if the Rangers or anyone else wanted to claim them, they could. At least, unless there came a hard rain, and the arroyo flooded, and those waters carried the dearly departed to Caddo Creek to feed the catfish lurking on the creek bottom.

  He brushed the hay off his shirt and pants, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and walked to pick up his shotgun. He wiped the barrel and receiver with his bandana, and then reloaded the twelve-gauge. It would get a thorough cleaning later. He just wanted the weapon ready to fire, in case the McCoy-Maxwell Gang was close. The girl was still working on the boy, so he rounded up the horses, his and Charley’s, and put them in the corral but not unsaddling them.

  They walked over to drink from the tin pail in the center of the corral. The Cherokee watched them for just a moment, and heard something. He turned and almost smiled.

  Birds chirped. A raven soared overhead. Peace slowly but certainly began to settle over the hideout. The violence would soon be forgotten, and some sort of normalcy would return to that section of the Chickasaw Nation.

  The boy and girl sat on the crate, the boy holding a wet rag against his forehead. The blood and grime had been cleaned off his face. He had picked up the big Winchester rifle the outlaw had been firing, and it was cradled on his lap.

  “You two all right?” Sixpersons asked.

  The girl nodded.

  The boy dropped his rag.

  And that almost dropped Sixpersons to the ground.

  James blinked. That old Indian, who had saved their lives from Jared Whitney, looked as if he had seen a ghost. For a moment, James thought the lawman might drop dead of an apoplexy.

  The old man’s mouth opened, but no words came out. He stared, studied, took a tentative step closer, and then pointed a long finger at James. “You . . .” was all he managed to say.

  “Yeah . . .” James shot a glance at Robin, but her eyes were locked on the Cherokee.

  Slowly, the Indian came closer and looked at the Winchester ’86 on James’s lap. Something clicked in the old man’s mind, and those dark eyes lost that vacant stare. “You’re Jimmy’s . . . nephew.”

  Something registered with James, too. “You’re Jackson Sixpersons. You rode with Uncle Jimmy.”

  Jackson Sixpersons did not grin. He nodded. “What the Sam Hill are you doing here?” The Cherokee lawman no longer sounded stunned.

  Slowly, James slid his left hand into his back pocket, found what he wanted, withdrew it, and held it in an open palm for the lawman and Robin to see. It was the six-point star with DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL stamped in bold black letters in the center.

  “You’re a lawman?” Robin asked in surprise.

  James shook his head. “No, but I want to be. I’ve got to be. Just like . . . Uncle Jimmy.”

  “A deputy? You? Like Jimmy?” Sixpersons shook his head. “We’ll get all this straightened out later. Right now—”

  James cut him off by standing. “Right now, we have to catch up with those others. Stop them. And save my pa.”

  For some reason, the Cherokee did not protest. Maybe he knew that James had shown his worth.

  That’s what James wanted to believe. And he had. If not for him, Sixpersons would be dead. So would James. So would Robin. It had taken all three of them to kill Jared Whitney, but that outlaw was dead. And so were those other two. Two lawmen. Killed. Like Uncle Jimmy.

  Sixpersons nodded. “All right. Where are we going?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  South of Fort Washita, Chickasaw Nation

  He had planned the heist perfectly, and everything had come together. Satisfied, Link McCoy drew the flask of rye from his trousers pocket and tossed the liquor to Tulip Bells, who sat across the dying campfire alongside Zane Maxwell. The rest of the gang, the cigarette-smoking Choctaw breed, and the man they all thought was the whiskey runner Bodeen stood by the wagon. The outlaws were loading or cleaning their weapons. “Bodeen” and Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee were hitching the team to the covered wagon they would drive into Fort Washita in an hour.

  After unscrewing the flask and taking a snort, Tulip Bells wiped his mouth and said, “But I still don’t see why we need him.” He tilted his bell crown hat toward the wagon.

  “The poisoned liquor,” Link explained as he fed the last two and seven-eighths-inch shell into his cut-down
ten-gauge. “The Chickasaws won’t care about the stolen gold. They’ll be chasing him halfway to Texas, and he’ll be running for his life. That’s how come he’s alive. That’s the only reason.”

  Bells considered that, took another drink, and tossed the flask to Maxwell. “But it’s their money we’ll have stole.”

  “Indians are different from white men, Tulip,” Link said with a grin. “They value the lives of their loved ones higher than gold. Remember how we had to scare them off from taking Bodeen’s scalp?”

  Bells nodded. “And the law? The law that ain’t injuns. You know, them deputies from Fort Smith?”

  Link let his partner answer.

  “Deputy marshals won’t be there,” Zane said after swallowing a healthy portion of the rye. “They’ll be way up in the Cherokee Nation. Seems that the Maxwell-McCoy Gang plans to rob a train near Gibson this afternoon.”

  “McCoy-Maxwell Gang,” Link corrected.

  With a sly grin, Maxwell pitched the flask to Link.

  Tulip Bells laughed. “What about the Indian coppers?”

  “Won’t be any,” Maxwell said and wiped his nose. “That’s something else I learned from hanging out with all those ink-slinging reporters in Fort Worth. The U.S. Indian Police lets money do the talking. Those Texas cattle barons paid a fair amount to the commissioner in Muskogee to make sure no police would be around Fort Washita today. Texans like their liquor.”

  “Until they get a snootful of Bodeen’s,” Link added.

  The flask was back in Bells’ right hand. “So . . . all we got to worry about is the Texans guarding the gold payment.”

  Maxwell and Link nodded, and Link pointed a finger at the men they had brought into the gang. “That’s what they’re for. And while they’re fighting off the Texans, killing each other, we’ll be riding south. With enough gold to send the McCoy-Maxwell Gang into retirement.”

  Maxwell cleared his throat. “The Maxwell-McCoy Gang.”

  Everyone, even Link, laughed heartily, until Tulip asked one last question. “Where’s Whitney? Shouldn’t he be here by now?”

  “He should be,” Link answered as he stood. “But if he doesn’t make it in time, that’s just one less man we’ll have to kill—if the Texans don’t kill him first.”

  Along Caddo Creek, Chickasaw Nation

  Everything finally clicked for Jackson Sixpersons, a slow, methodical man who waited until he knew everything before making a decision. It had kept him alive in Indian Territory.

  Fort Washita.

  He recalled his conversation with the Chickasaw up at Fort Arbuckle. Folsom had told him that he had to be at Fort Washita where the Texans would be bringing “money for grass to feed their beef.” Knowing Texans, knowing how hard and dry things had been in the Lone Star State, those cattlemen would be paying a tidy sum for all that grass to feed their cows. The lease price. That was what Link McCoy and Zane Maxwell planned on stealing.

  Sixpersons kept thinking. He had sent Flatt and Mallory to bring back more lawmen, and by a stroke of luck, had asked for the deputy marshals to rendezvous with him at Fort Washita.

  The Cherokee marshal almost felt satisfied until he saw the dust up the trail. He reined in and motioned for the two kids, James Mann and Robin Gillett, to stay behind him. Sixpersons pressed the shotgun’s butt on his thigh and waited.

  A rider came into view, stopped, stared, and then slowed his horse to a walk, approaching slowly, carefully.

  “O-si-yo,” Sixpersons called out in Cherokee, for the man rode like an Indian.

  The man answered. “Don’t hello me in your heathen tongue.”

  Sixpersons frowned. He knew the voice, and by then he knew the gray hat the rider wore. It was the half-breed Chickasaw lawman, Folsom. The same one who had told him about the meeting between the Texans and the Indians at Fort Washita.

  “Thought you were supposed to be in Fort Washita,” Sixpersons said when the man reined up beside him.

  “Was. Got told not to.” Folsom shrugged, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a note. “So I get to play Pony Express rider and deliver you some important message.” He held out the yellow telegram.

  The two kids, sensing the lack of danger from Folsom, eased their horses alongside the old Cherokee.

  Sixpersons studied the telegram after adjusting his spectacles.

  MCCOY MAXWELL GANG TO ROB KATY

  AT GIBSON STATION JULY 4 STOP

  PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO ASSIST STOP

  G R CRUMP US MARSHAL FT SMITH

  Sixpersons crumpled the note in his hand. “How does Crump know the gang’s robbing the train?”

  Folsom shrugged. “The telegrapher didn’t tell me.”

  One of those confidential informants, Sixpersons figured. It had to be. But probably not as reliable as the half-breed Choctaw Newton Ah-ha-lo-man-tubbee could be. “July Fourth.” The Cherokee shrugged.

  Folsom laughed. “Yeah. You got some hard riding to do, to get to Cherokee country in . . . six hours.”

  Sixpersons couldn’t have covered that distance even on a train. “What took you so long to deliver this?”

  The half-breed pushed back the brim of his big gray hat. “You ain’t exactly the easiest lawman to find, Sixpersons.”

  Turning to his right, the Cherokee lawman considered James Mann for a brief moment then looked to his left to see the slight girl dressed as a boy. Not much of a posse. He stared hard at Folsom. “That gang’s nowhere near Gibson. They’re robbing the Texans delivering that money to you Chickasaws today at Fort Washita.”

  “Explains why the mighty-mucks at Muskogee told me not to be there today.”

  “I’m going,” Sixpersons said, but he would not ask, not beg Folsom to come with him, although he did add, “There’s a mighty big reward on McCoy and Maxwell.”

  “Yep.” Folsom nudged his horse to the side of the road, riding past the girl, walking at first. “Problem is, you can’t spend that money if you’re dead.” He kicked his mount into a trot.

  The lope turned into a gallop as the half-breed Chickasaw left the three sitting their horses in the middle of the trail.

  Honestly, in his gut, even Sixpersons considered giving up his foolish notion and riding after Folsom. He thought about breaking his vow and getting drunk. Yet it was the girl who brought his mind back to some sort of reason, if one could call it reason and not insanity.

  “I’m going,” she said.

  The boy concurred. “So am I.” James had already pulled the big Winchester ’86 from its scabbard.

  Sixpersons studied him and shook his head in wonderment. That boy was the spitting image of Jimmy. Had his sass. Style too. And sure didn’t lack courage. The old Cherokee only hoped the kid had a bit more discipline than his namesake uncle.

  He turned to the girl. She had picked up the dead Ranger’s Winchester repeater, and the dead outlaw’s Starr revolver. “Can you shoot that rifle?” he asked.

  “She shoots better that I do,” James answered.

  Sixpersons cursed. “That ain’t exactly the highest praise I was looking for.”

  Fort Washita, Chickasaw Nation

  From the high point of the road, McCoy watched. Trees grew along the creek banks and on the hills behind the fort, and every once in a while he could see another tree sprouting, trying to take root in what once had been a treeless prairie of gentling rolling plains. Progress, Link figured. In a few more years, actual forests might be growing in this part of Indian country.

  He saw a few tents flapping in the wind outside the fort’s walls, and inside the fort, a Texas Lone Star flag flew high and proud. Likely, a Texas flag had not flown over the post since the Civil War. The Chickasaws must be welcoming those Texas cattlemen. That would also explain why the wind carried the notes of “The Bonny Blue Flag” from the fort. A brass band was warming up down there.

  “Locksburgh.” McCoy waited for the gunman to ease his horse forward. “The guard tower’s yours. Get up there. Should be two sentries. Texans.
Kill them. Quietly.”

  “No problem,” the killer said.

  “When you’ve done it, lean out the front window, wave that pretty bandana I gave you. That’s our signal.”

  With a solemn nod, the gunman kicked his horse into a trot and headed down the hill toward the old fort.

  “Red, you ride with the whiskey runner, but keep your horse tied up behind the wagon.”

  McCoy waited as the gunman dismounted to lead his old nag to the covered wagon. “Smith, you have—”

  “I know.” The killer shook his head. “You’ve told us often enough. Upstairs corner window of the West Barracks. Good cover.”

  “That’s right.”

  The Army boys had put up those barracks back in ’56, finding the limestone at a nearby quarry. Since it had been abandoned, some family had turned the big building into a home, but they were out of town, renting the place to the Texans for their celebration and party.

  McCoy grinned. It would not be much of a celebration for those cattlemen, but certainly a party they would never forget. No one would ever forget that Independence Day in the Indian Nations.

  “Then get to it.” He watched John Smith lope toward the fort then turned to Tulip Bells. “The South Barracks are yours.” That’s all he needed to say.

  That building, finished around 1849, had been made of wood and stone, the lumber coming from seventy-five miles away. It stretched a hundred and twenty feet long and thirty or so feet wide, fourteen-foot high ceilings, with the upper story completely surrounded by a verandah.

  During the Army years, the upper story had been used for two companies and the orderlies, while the company, mess, and storage rooms sat on the dark, bottom floor. Bells would find a good vantage point from the upper story. Most of the visitors and dignitaries would be on the parade ground, what they called the cannon pavilion back in the day, but the cannons had left with the Army.

  Bells finished his cigarette and grinned before kicking his horse into a trot.